A Needle in the Right Hand of God: The Norman Conquest of 1066 and the Making and Meaning of the Bayeux Tapestry

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Binding: Hardcover Dewey Decimal Number: 746.44204338942 EAN: 9781400065493 ISBN: 1400065496 Label: Random House Manufacturer: Random House Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 256 Publication Date: 2006-12-01 Publisher: Random House Release Date: 2006-11-28 Studio: Random House
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Editorial Reviews: The Bayeux Tapestry is the world’s most famous textile–an exquisite 230-foot-long embroidered panorama depicting the events surrounding the Norman Conquest of 1066. It is also one of history’s most mysterious and compelling works of art. This haunting stitched account of the battle that redrew the map of medieval Europe has inspired dreams of theft, waves of nationalism, visions of limitless power, and esthetic rapture. In his fascinating new book, Yale professor R. Howard Bloch reveals the history, the hidden meaning, the deep beauty, and the enduring allure of this astonishing piece of cloth. Bloch opens with a gripping account of the event that inspired the Tapestry: the swift, bloody Battle of Hastings, in which the Norman bastard William defeated the Anglo-Saxon king, Harold, and laid claim to England under his new title, William the Conqueror. But to truly understand the connection between battle and embroidery, one must retrace the web of international intrigue and scandal that climaxed at Hastings. Bloch demonstrates how, with astonishing intimacy and immediacy, the artisans who fashioned this work of textile art brought to life a moment that changed the course of British culture and history. Every age has cherished the Tapestry for different reasons and read new meaning into its enigmatic words and images. French nationalists in the mid-nineteenth century, fired by Tapestry’s evocation of military glory, unearthed the lost French epic “The Song of Roland,” which Norman troops sang as they marched to victory in 1066. As the Nazis tightened their grip on Europe, Hitler sent a team to France to study the Tapestry, decode its Nordic elements, and, at the end of the war, with Paris under siege, bring the precious cloth to Berlin. The richest horde of buried Anglo-Saxon treasure, the matchless beauty of Byzantine silk, Aesop’s strange fable “The Swallow and the Linseed,” the colony that Anglo-Saxon nobles founded in the Middle East following their defeat at Hastings–all are brilliantly woven into Bloch’s riveting narrative. Seamlessly integrating Norman, Anglo-Saxon, Viking, and Byzantine elements, the Bayeux Tapestry ranks with Chartres and the Tower of London as a crowning achievement of medieval Europe. And yet, more than a work of art, the Tapestry served as the suture that bound up the wounds of 1066. Enhanced by a stunning full-color insert that includes reproductions of the complete Tapestry, A Needle in the Right Hand of God will stand with The Professor and the Madman and How the Irish Saved Civilization as a triumph of popular history.
Spotlight customer reviews: Customer Rating: Summary: Context for the Bayeux Tapestry Comment: Of all the great historical and artistic sites in the world, the Bayeux Tapestry is perhaps second on my list of places I would like to visit (Troy comes first). Actually not a "tapestry" (it is technically an embroidery) the Bayeux Tapestry, dating from the Eleventh century pictorially tells the story of William the Conqueror's invasion of England and victorious battle at Hastings. Exactly who sponsored its creation, designed it, and embroidered it remain mysteries, as does its ultimate purpose. Bloch's new book does not seek to supply sensational answers to these continuing controversies (as did, for example, Andrew Bridgeford's "1066: The Hidden History of the Bayeux Tapestry"), nor even to solve the perplexing mystery of the identity of the woman "Aelfgyva" who appears in the Tapestry. Instead, Bloch provides a fast-reading discussion of the historical and artistic context for understanding the Tapestry. He concludes that there are many Scandinavian/Norman elements incorporated into the the design (and Scandinavian textiles are the most closely related art works known), but that Anglo-Saxon illuminated manuscripts appear to supply the models for the style of illustration. And the author traces back important design elements to Byzantine silk weavings. Bloch contends that the Tapestry was consciously created as a way to bring together the Anglo-Saxon and Norman peoples on both sides of the English Channel (although it seems to me that this view is suspiciously congruent with modern notions of multiculturism rather than Eleventh century realities). Regardless whether one accepts or rejects this viewpoint, the book's narrative provides an informative examination of the Norman and Anglo-Saxon worlds which gave birth to this unique artistic treasure. Customer Rating: Summary: Impressive! Comment: Dr Bloch explains the tale of the Tapestry in a very clear and appealing manner. In particular, he describes the sequence of events depicted by the Tapestry itself as well as the political environment of early 11th century Europe that led to the pivotal Battle of Hastings. His insights are cogent and sound. I highly recommend this brief but thorough work. Customer Rating: Summary: Unusual insights, engaging writing Comment: It's said that the Devil can quote Scripture to prove his own point - and something like that has been tried with the Bayeux Tapestry, which depicts the Norman Conquest of England. The French claim it as French. The English have claimed it as Anglo-Saxon. During World War II, Hitler tried to use it as a kind of Book of Genesis for the Third Reich. William the Conqueror, 7th Duke of Normandy, was the descendant of Vikings. ("Norman" derives from the Latin for "Northmen.") The Scandinavian connection appealed to Hitler's racial, mythic notions. Among the Tapestry's 11th century images of conquering warriors, he sought ancient origins for his supposed Germanic super-race. In fact, maintains R. Howard Bloch, these competing claims are only possible because the Tapestry itself hardly takes sides between the conquered Anglo-Saxons and the conquering Normans, and seeks to reconcile those whom it portrays. Its point of view is neither clearly Norman nor Anglo-Saxon. Without dwelling on fixing blame, it shows both armies fighting bravely. ("French and English fall together," it says of the battle at Hastings.) All may go on to become King William's peaceful subjects. Bloch finds in the Tapestry's well-recognized ambiguities an intention by its designer to tell the story without maligning either Normans or Anglo-Saxons. Sterling Professor of French and the Director of the Humanities Division at Yale, as well as author of several books about the Middle Ages, Bloch brings an unusual array of qualifications to this subject. His mother, formally trained as a textile engineer, was a craftswoman who covered the walls of their home with creative needlework; his father an expert in the manufacture of finished cloth. In considering the Tapestry, its purposes and the influences it reflects, especially those found in other woven, painted or embroidered fabrics, Bloch speaks the language of textiles as one born to it. He points out from the beginning, as all writers on the Bayeux Tapestry must, that it isn't strictly a tapestry at all, but an embroidery, on a long (about 230 feet) linen strip; and that we have no other record like it. Despite the crude medieval drawing, the Tapestry vividly brings alive the sweep of events. The most photorealistic horses, for example, could not pulse with more vitality, or fall in battle more convincingly, than they do in these images. In the Tapestry's unfolding story, we see the Anglo-Saxon Harold Godwineson swear his oath of loyalty to Duke William. It doesn't tell us whether he had a choice, or was tricked. Is King Edward the Confessor of England, on his deathbed, revoking his promise of the crown to his kinsman, Duke William of Normandy? Promising it to Harold? There sits Harold in majesty, crowned -- if it was with indecent haste, the Tapestry doesn't say so -- the day after Edward's death. Duke William "is told of Harold," the Tapestry tells us neutrally, and he prepares to invade. There is the mysterious woman, Aelfgyva. With generations of scholars we wonder who she is, and why she is here. Is that cleric merely touching her head, or slapping her so that she'll never forget something she's witnessing? The images quicken their pace, reaching the bloody clash at Hastings and the Norman victory. Something is missing at the end of the Tapestry; perhaps the lost portion showed King William in majesty, matching the earlier crowned and enthroned Harold. Professor Bloch understands the Tapestry with an appreciation of what may be called the southern angle: that the Normans who had campaigned in or been to the Italian peninsula, Sicily, the Holy Land, Constantinople, brought back with them both novel combat tactics and a network of cultural threads that linked their northern homeland with Byzantium and with the whole Mediterranean world. He points out not only the famly Scandinavian links of style and motif with the Tapestry, but those found in sumptuous Byzantine silks, proposing lights for what have been obscure corners of Tapestry interpretation. In so doing, he gives greater attention to the enigmatic borders of the Tapestry -- those often-cryptic passages above and below the main narrative -- than do some other commentators. He argues that the Tapestry deliberately leaves crucial questions unanswered. It means to withhold one-sided judgments. The Tapestry does NOT tell us whether Harold swore fealty to William willingly, or whether he knew he was holding his hands outstretched over sacred relics, making the oath a much more serious matter. It leaves unstated, not alone what King Edward intended at the last, but what it was in his power to do. Though the evidence suggests that English hands made the Tapestry, it is NOT clear whose voice, so to speak, tells the story. The Tapestry, Bloch maintains, is not a work of partisan propaganda. King William, he says, wanted Anglo-Saxons and Normans reconciled under his unifying rule -- and wanted the wider world to acquiesce in his dreams of even wider empire. Without knowing for sure when or where the Tapestry was made, or by whom ordered, or where it was designed to be displayed, Bloch says, we can find all this on its face. It's an argument that anyone interested in the Norman Conquest, the events surrounding it and those that flowed from it, should want to consider; and it is engagingly written. I couldn't put it down. Its story is, of course, still relevant -- to, among much else, the fact that Prince William of England will someday be King William V because he'll be counting from King William I, the Conqueror. More Reviews